At a bail hearing in a New York federal court yesterday, federal prosecutors claimed that Ross Ulbricht, the alleged operator of the Silk Road online marketplace for drugs, had ordered six hits on people he believed had cheated him or knew too much, and that he had amassed a personal fortune of $20 million in Bitcoins.

On Wednesday, supporters also launched a legal defense fundraising campaign, along with a video of testimonials from supporters describing Ulbricht’s character. “Ross is not a criminal mastermind, and Ross is not killer,” says one of Ulbricht’s friends, whose face is not shown in the video.

“I can tell you he’s not a murderer,” Ulbricht’s mother Lyn Ulbricht said ...

The diary begins in 2010, when he first came up with the idea of creating Silk Road using Tor, the anonymous, encrypted version of the internet that makes illicit transactions more secure:

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As time went by, Ulbricht allegedly derived the vast majority of his livelihood from running Silk Road. But no one in "real" life knew he was "the Dread Pirate Roberts" — not even his girlfriend. Ulbricht allegedly confessed this fact to an under cover federal agent (UC):

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The prosecutors' motion shows Ulbricht believed his net worth was $104 million and he was holding $20 million in Bitcoin:

The feds had Ulbricht under surveillance for months, but in 2013 Ulbricht allegedly started hiring contract killers, the court papers claim:

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The number of hits Ulbricht allegedly ordered grew over time, so he added the hits to his Silk Road admin "to-do list," on his computer, the feds' motions says. Here's a sample of the list from March 2013 (emphasis added):